November 19, 2014
Astronaut Marsha Ivins describes life in space
Astronaut Marsha Ivins describes her experiences: prelaunch, launch, and zero-g: "It’s a mix of the transcendently magical and the deeply prosaic."
Fleshlettes
Red rum reduxe
Campus rape
"Jackie was just starting her freshman year at the University of Virginia when she was brutally assaulted by seven men at a frat party. When she tried to hold them accountable, a whole new kind of abuse began" Many trigger warnings. [more inside]
Nobody in history has ever listened to an entire episode front-to-back
“It is almost a fairytale, but that doesn’t take away from the beauty.”
Tacoma Art Museum has just opened an entirely new wing devoted to a single collection of Western American art [depicting Native Americans and created by Europeans and Euro-Americans]. Because the work presented is culturally problematic, the museum has taken the unusual step of commissioning a handful of Native American people to write labels responding to the art. What results in the galleries can be frustrating, but it also breaks open the complexity of what's really going on both in the art and in the institution of the museum in 2014.How Tacoma Art Museum Criticizes a Collection Without Angering the Donors, by Jen Graves.
Overtime, Stock, And The Dwindling Middle Class
And it turns out that fair overtime standards are to the middle class what the minimum wage is to low-income workers: not everything, but an indispensable labor protection that is absolutely essential to creating a broad and thriving middle class.
Seattle entrepreneur Nick Hanauer (previously) discusses how unpaid overtime is choking the middle class, the shell game of stock buybacks, and what the Administration could do unilaterally to fix things.
Neuroscience has lost an important voice.
Allison Doupe, 1954-2014. "In this era of interdisciplinary science, there is a common phrase: much is known but in different heads. Occasionally, multiple disciplines come together in one remarkable head."
Greil Marcus and Don DeLillo discuss Bob Dylan and Bucky Wunderlick
The following conversation took place in 2005 in front of an audience at the Telluride film festival in Colorado, after a screening of Martin Scorsese’s documentary, Bob Dylan: No Direction Home.
"I am defending grandmother earth and I am chasing peace."
Crow Creek Lakota member Greg Grey Cloud interrupted the Senate to sing a victory song after the Keystone XL pipeline was defeated. (Scroll down for video)
Butter Wars, squatting with Sid, and £10,000 on iPad apps
The financial wisdom of Johnny Rotten. Former Sex Pistol John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten) discusses spending, saving, investment, debt, and reveals the "best thing [he] ever bought." Unsurprisingly he's a bit cynical on celebrity charity, but it makes him "happy" when people spend their money on him.
Tactical Duty Kilt
All I can say is euhhh...
But in addition, and to make the dub look as realistic as possible, she must also identify every instance of a character uttering a word with an m, p, or b in it in English, and find a word in French with the same consonant. And the replacement word has to fit into that sentence in exactly the same spot as where the American actor’s mouth makes the m, p, or b face.
And you think your job is tedious! What It Takes to Be the French Jennifer Lawrence.
It's time to fix our broken immigration system.
Tomorrow night, President Obama will address the nation on steps he will be taking by executive action in an attempt to fix the immigration laws. [more inside]
Pelvic sorcery of the finest kind
Best Tech Employers For Women (and a Nordic Mystery)
Amazing Little Flip Books Use Negative Space and Secret Compartments
"These fun little flip books made in Japan feature a number of unexpected designs that make use of negative space and secret “compartments” that are gradually revealed as you flip through the books. There are several books in the series published by Mou Hitotsu no Kenkyujo and you can pick them up on Amazon. Here’s the bug one. (via Travelry)"
I El-Rei have knowledge of you Captain Zumbi of Palmares...
Quilombos are the communities formed by escaped slaves in Brazil.
Probably the most well known of these is Palmares one of whose inhabitants was the legendary leader Zumbi.
Probably the most well known of these is Palmares one of whose inhabitants was the legendary leader Zumbi.
"The Culture represents the place we might hope to get to"
The long-term optimism comes from the the fact that no matter how bad things seem and how idiotically and cruelly we behave. . . well, we've got this far, despite it all, and there are more people on the planet than ever before, and more people living good, productive, relatively happy lives than ever before, and—providing we aren't terminally stupid, or unlucky enough to get clobbered by something we have no control over, like a big meteorite or a gamma ray buster or whatever—we'll solve a lot of problems just by sticking around and doing what we do; developing, progressing, improving, adapting. And possibly by inventing AIs that are smarter and more decent than we are, which will help us get some sort of perspective on ourselves, at the very least. We might just stumble our way blindly, unthinkingly into utopia, in other words, muddling through despite ourselves.In 2010 Jude Roberts interviewed Iain M. Banks for her PhD. Banks discusses his utopia, The Culture, which he created in a series of science fiction novels.
And though you hate this song You'll be humming it for weeks
If Chick Chick is Rong I don't wanna be right. By Chinese pop legend Wang Rong Rollin.You gotta admit it's a step up from doing patriotic songs about China's claims to the Daioyu Islands like she did last year. (Send all blame for this here.)
The Phone Number 321-Liftoff Is Not For Sale
How I Got My Own Area Code: It took the combination of phone phreak and "space cadet" to find a relationship between the number 321 and the countdowns of Cape Canaveral. [more inside]
Hazel, a.k.a. UbOtDDstarL
A Deaf couple in Great Britain has successfully fought for the right to include the British Sign Language notation of their child's name on her birth certificate.
26 Essential Songs From The NYC Rock Resurgence
In a broad sense, you could call it the NYC rock revival, or resurgence, or early-’00s rock boom, or something. At the time, garage-rock revival, retro-rock revival, post-punk revival, and dance-punk were all monikers used liberally, and all were things that fell under the larger umbrella of the movement. As you’ll see from the list below, there were permutations within this, but generally speaking, music history remembers this in some broader terms: a youthful, stylish brand of rock music, with a carefully manicured sense of brooding, and musical touchstones that could basically be summed up by the Velvet Underground and Joy Division and the Ramones and a few other names, primarily from the late ’70s and early ’80s. There was, of course, sometimes much more to it than that, and sometimes not. In a more cynical approach, you could look at this era as the time when a few rich kids co-opted alternative cultures of the past and brought them to masses in a slightly sleeker box.
Dum Spiro Spero
South Carolina saw its first same-sex marriages today, in Charleston. The first license was issued to Colleen Condon and Nichols Bleckley; the first ceremony saw Kayla Bennett and Kristin Anderson married (vine). Licenses were issued last month, but a stay was issued by the state Supreme Court after a move by the governor and attorney general. An order by 4th circuit judge Richard Gergel yesterday was not stayed. [more inside]
Barry Can't Arf Weld
A short film about large scale Forging of special steels. Filmed at Firth Rixson in Sheffield. If you'd like to see very large machines bashing the crap out of very hot pieces of metal guided by very skilled workers, this is eight minutes of beautifully shot film that is very much for you.
Blood on the Corn
Chuck Bowden's final story,16 years in the making, is a fascinating 3 part read in to the torture and murder of DEA agent Enrique Camarena in 1985. [Part 1][Part 2][Part 3] [more inside]
The Golden Era of Silent Videogames
Save Your Apprentice!
The minimalistic, fast-paced browser roguelike Return to Tolagal now has a full desktop sequel, The Depths of Tolagal!
The Berlin Wall’s great human experiment
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